Five 14-year-old girls from India are in San Francisco this week, where they visited the Golden Gate Bridge and did a little shopping. Then they pitched the mobile app they built, intended to encourage recycling, help fight disease and earn them some money.

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“We have, quite simply, created a mobile marketplace for waste,” said Swasthi Rao as her teammates in the Technovation World Pitch Challenge stood by confidently in matching suits bought for them by their school in Bangalore.

The app connects waste producers with recyclers. Tea vendors, for example, can alert recyclers to used, empty plastic cups; the recyclers then share money they collect for the plastic with the vendors.

After explaining the app’s pay-as-you-go and subscription models that could generate an estimated $24,200 in revenue in its first year, the five young entrepreneurs ended with their jingle: “Why trash it when you can cash it?”

The Bangalore teens are among 43 girls and young women, on 10 teams from around the world, competing for $20,000 in seed funding. Wednesday, they pitched their apps, and business plans, to a panel of five female tech executives.

The goal of the competition, now in its sixth year and organized by the education nonprofit Iridescent, is to spark interest in tech entrepreneurship among pre-college girls. Nearly half of the girls who participate, organizers say, intend to major in computer-related studies. Over the six years, more than 5,000 girls from more than 30 countries have taken part.

Such events address a real need, organizers say. The U.S. Department of Labor estimates the nation will add 778,000 computer-related jobs this decade, but just 18% of bachelor degrees in computer-related majors are awarded to women, according to the National Science Foundation. Globally, 30% of the world’s science researchers are women, according to the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Tasneem Minadakis, an engineering manager at
Yelp Inc.,
recalls being the only girl in her middle school in India in the 1990s who was interested in computers. There was one desktop computer in a tiny lab, and her mother didn’t get the attraction. “You’re a girl! And you want to do that?” Ms. Minadakis recalls her mother saying.

Wednesday, she said “It warms my heart,” to watch the five middle schoolers from Bangalore. She helped judge the competition, alongside women executives from
Google Inc.,Salesforce.com Inc.
and
Yahoo Inc.
The winners were to be named Thursday night. Sponsors of the competition include Google,
Oracle Corp.
,
Intel Corp.
, and Verizon Communications Inc.

Organizers asked the girls to create a mobile app that addresses local challenges. Finalists took on childhood obesity, sports concussions, drunken driving, and water waste as well as waste disposal. In October, Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi
launched a nationwide campaign to address health issues associated with overflowing garbage in India’s cities. “We were inspired by it,” said Swasthi.

High-school students from Nigeria pitch their app at the Technovation event at Yelp offices.
Photo:
Laura Morton for The Wall Street Journal

The event became a global showcase of young tech talent. A team from Mexico pitched a fitness app. Middle-schoolers from Brazil, where a drought has led to water rationing, demonstrated a mobile game about water conservation. A team of high-school girls from Nigeria, delayed for days by travel issues, rushed into the hip, loft-like Yelp offices after the competition had begun. The crowd erupted in raucous cheers.

Praise David-Oku, 16, said the cheers were welcome after the delays. “It wasn’t fun at all, going from hotel to hotel. We ran out of money, and had to get more from our parents,” she said.

Even before the pitches began, the contestants proved an inspiration. Regina Basave, 10, from San Jose, Calif., watched Swasthi and her teammates set up their presentation materials.